billfrech wrote:I have had it for about 1 1/2 years now. It is great for a) finding creeks around your area you did not know about and b) finding creeks in areas of PA that you are unfamiliar with but happen to be traveling in. It also take you close to access points for the streams.

I have the Garmin version so no iPhone reception issues.

This has been my experience over a 1.5 year period as well. I have the card installed in a Garmin unit. Often I travel throughout PA in areas that I have never been. When I have time to fish I will leave the program on hit random streams. It's pretty cool. I am not sure how valuable the updates would be as the only thing that is really going to change from year to year is the occasional special reg change and/or addition/deletion of a few class a.

GPS is worldwide. You can get it in Siberia or Antarctica as easily as in a city. Perhaps easier.

In the Pine Creek Valley, I can verify that both my handheld and my car GPS do indeed work just fine.

Canyons will degrade signals, though. As can skyscrapers in cities. It might take a better antenna or something, or you may have a lower accuracy fix. Ultimately, I never cared whether it was accurate to 3 ft or 10 ft.

I have noticed that with my oldest handheld, it would go out even in the forest, the freakin foilage blocked the signal, which rendered it about useless in PA IMO. With my semi-newer one, with the better antenna, that's not a problem.

I drove thru the Lehigh Tunnel a few weeks ago and my Garnin NEVER lost signal. I've had the GPS Fishing Guide for just about 2 months now and I haven't fished the same water twice since. Some better than others but I had a blast every time out.

Since my earlier posts, I actually now have a smart phone! I did buy this app last night. It was $20 something in the Play store.

Looks ok, again, I'd love the natural repro list. Without that, it's not really a great way to search for new streams. But nice to have the regs handy, and be able to look at USGS topos seamlessly. Plus the interest level to see what's around on non-fishing trips when you haven't done the homework.

I'm still figuring out how to use it. Seems intuitive enough but a little clunky at points. For instance, the map background keeps bringing up satellite view, before switching over to my choice. I can choose road map, or more often USGS topo, which is really cool. But it wants to load that satellite image before switching. Every time I pan around, it's wait, here comes the satellite pic, ok, now switch over to topo!

In my house on wifi, that's fine. But on the road, that's gonna kill my data usage goals!

Overall, though, these are my gripes but it's a good app. Better than most. Really good for those who aren't looking to find the off the radar places but instead fish the known and popular spots. But even for us small stream guys it'll have it's place.

Sorry for the delay in posting any replies. I've been away from the forum taking my family vacation and getting two kids off to college.

djs12354

Let me know which lake the point is wrong on and I'll take a look at that point. I always knew there were going to be a few errors. I need feedback like this to refine everything. With 5000 points, I can't say I've visited them all. I can fix these dynamically without the need for users to update the app if I know where the errors exist.

Stagger_Lee

1. All features and functions are the same although the Android architecture works slightly differently because of Android's design. The only true difference is in entering latitude and longitude coordinates for waypoints manually. In iOS, you can use multiple formats, In Android, only Decimal Degrees is supported.

2. Buy it once and it can be installed on up to 5 Android devices.

3. Because the purchase is tied to your Google ID, you can install it on new Android devices when you upgrade. If you change to iPhone however, you would have to purchase it again since it is a completely different product. Make sure you export your waypoints to import in your upgraded device.

FYI - You can try the Android version FREE for three days. Just click the ad on this page.

pcray

I wish I could eliminate the underlying satellite maps when loading Topo's as well but to create a functional GPS map with overlays, I need to use the devices internal map as a base layer. No real options on this one.

Once a USGS tile downloads the first time, it is stored in the phone and is immediately recalled the next time you need it. I download topos on wifi for the areas I need ahead of time for speed.

The USGS files are very small as well. I had a beefy data plan for app testing and ended up reducing it radically. Even with extensive testing on two different phones simultaneously for a month, I only used 1 Gb of data. I don't think any user will ever approach that given the many days of testing I did.

I'll also check out that hunting app. Sounds useful.

PS - Maybe next year for the Nat Repro list. The streams are on the map now. They just need data and destination points behind them. There's a lot of downside to making it that accessible though.

FYI - I'm playing with designing a new topo app based on the fishing app that will map every stream in the Continental US and let you search for any named lake or stream by name to target it on the maps. You then view the roadmap, set a waypoint on a road next to the water course or on a bridge and tap GO for driving directions. Unfortunately it's just too big to be able to incorporate access points. It's kind of a "Higbee USA". It's in early stages but a lot of the research is done.